The Tax Man is coming. It sounds like a cross between “Something Wicked This Way Comes” and The Grim Reaper. Obviously, I am not one of the 1% that is not paying my fair share or at least it seems that way or else my description might be different. It would be more of a nuisance than a nightmare. Even here at Dads Talking we are not immune from the “paying unto Caesar that which is Caeser’s”. It is that time of year when procrastinator’s everywhere are wondering when on Monday the post office closes, and it is a great time to explain to your children the idea of what taxes are and what it means to have to pay for your taxes.
My son this week lost a tooth and received $3.00 in real American Dollars for the feat. No, this is not a lesson in inflation, that is another post for another time. I wanted to take an opportunity to explain taxes and why Daddy was cranky and why I was cleaning up those piles of paper in the office. I started down the path and soon found my audience was less than thrilled at the lesson, until we got to his three $1 bills. I told him that Daddy pays about 1/3 or one in every three dollars he makes in payments to him or his company to the government. It may actually be worse but I am bad at math.
He had complete understanding of that feeling when I took one of his dollars and put it in my pocket. “Now you just paid your taxes on the money the tooth fairy left you. You’re good.” He pondered that for a moment and asked, “So when do I get it back?” I then went into another explanation of what the money paid for and what is it used for and how much some people pay and what others pay. His politics started to show when he said that he understood yet wanted to find out when he could get the dollar back. It was not taken well when I said it was as good as gone forever.
I decided not to take the lesson to its full extent but he began to understand why Daddy was cranky and why he was not in the best mood. We don’t often think of the $1 that is taken from us for the three that are paid but it puts things in perspective for our kids. As I groom the child to be the next President, I am hoping we can abolish these foolish ideas of giving away our money because we have always don’t it that way. My son sat up that night looking out the window, not this time for the “boogey man”, but for that crazy tax man. He lurks around our house every year during Spring.